Huntington Bancshares Buys Fidelity Bank In Southeastern Michigan

3/30/2012 5:22 PM ET

Huntington Bancshares Inc. (HBAN) announced that it has purchased Fidelity Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC. Fidelity Bank was closed earlier this evening by the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC as the receiver.

Subsequently, the FDIC sold the 15-branch bank to Huntington. Effective Saturday, March 31, 2012, all of Fidelity Bank branches will open as Huntington branches. Huntington currently has 50 banking offices in Southeast Michigan, more than 115 in Michigan and more than 600 branches throughout the Midwest.

As of March 9, 2012, Fidelity Bank had approximately $0.8 billion in assets and $0.7 billion of deposits.

Huntington said that it has completed due diligence on more than half of the loan portfolio, resulting in an acquisition asset discount of approximately $150 million.

In 2012, the transaction is expected to be over 2% accretive to earnings per share, less than 1% accretive to tangible book value, and very modestly dilutive to Huntington's capital ratios.

The company said that starting Saturday, the former Fidelity Bank customers will continue to conduct banking business at their existing banking offices with familiar employees. Then beginning on April 13, 2012, customers will have access to Huntington's entire 1,300 ATM network throughout the Midwest, with no service charge, including the 52 ATMs in East Michigan. Then in late June, their existing accounts will be converted to Huntington's systems.

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